The Boy in the Basement
by Caspell
Summary: Light hair, eyes dark as pitch. Cheekbones you could slice butter with. A striped jumper that belonged back in the 90s. My first thought was that he had beautifully shaped teeth. The second was how pretty they'd look dangling from a necklace. Tate/OC
1. Chapter 1

When somebody dies, they do it in stages.

First there's the struggle. To properly enjoy the tussle you have to be fit, and you have to be able to adapt in a moment's notice. They're going to grab at anything within reach and attempt to hit you with it. They're going to flail wildly and give all sorts of unexpected twists and jerks, and you have to keep them under control, like a cowboy on a bucking bull.

Then comes the beautiful realization of the truth. In a brief instant, the victim must realize and subsequently come to terms with the reality of their imminent death. If you've done your job right, this precious insight occurs mere seconds before the actual casualty itself.

My personal favorite method is strangulation. I generally pretend I'm an adorable monkey, perched high on the back, just enough out of reach as to be a real annoyance. I've perfected the technique of holding my fingers _so_ until their breathing gets shorter and they keel over. People look better on their knees.

I prefer to see their eyes, though, when the actual death occurs. If you've never murdered, if you're one of those prudes with a high moral ground that shakes their head at the grisly stories on TV as if you are the Lord Christ himself, then you cannot possibly understand. There is a peculiar sort of ecstasy that comes of watching that last little spark of life whither and die; the warmth goes out, the cold seeps in like its winter. All of it – the struggle, the mess after – it's worth it for those brief moments of total clarity when you see the prey meet its inevitable end.

~:~:~

_**To-Date Homicide Bucket List:**_

_The Pope_

_The Top 14 of the World's Sexiest Men, 2011 Edition_

_All PETA Activists_

_The Guy that Sings About Double Rainbows_

_And, let's be honest: anyone, anyone, anyone. I'm not picky, just bored. _

~:~:~

Every year or so, the leaves change color and, like clockwork, my mother will come into the house and start looking for new places online. We have lived in more houses and villas and sprawling studio apartments in my sixteen years than I would care to count. After a while I just stopped unpacking and learnt to live out of a suitcase. I don't need much, anyway. A few clothes, a few knives. Rubber gloves, sanitary wipes, jumbo-sized garbage bags.

Bleach.

The usual.

When my mother found the Murder House, it was like a dream come true. Three storeys and 10,440 square feet of pure urban legend gold. It had everything: multiple suicides, stillbirths, an illegal abortion ring, a gay couple that died after a rowdy S&M session that got out of hand. My mother, while she has never thought to kill a human, shares my passion for old and creepy.

Two Thursdays later and we were pulling up the leaf-strewn drive.

The wonderful thing about old houses is that they tend to _leer _at you when you first meet them; whether an optical illusion brought on by the sheer size of the building or some other malevolent force at play, you can always count on a house to really draw you in the first time you see it.

Our real estate agent was a middle-aged disaster in a two-piece suit. She went into paroxysmal raptures the moment she caught sight of us: unsurprisingly, the notorious house had been on the market for a while.

I was glad of the chance to slip quietly into the house on my own. It would be a brilliant place to explore, I thought, running my fingertips over the newly polished stair bannisters. Its online profile had said the house had both an attic and a basement, as well as some sort of hastily erected gazebo outside; the legacy of one of the earlier patrons.

I chose a room that looked out over the street. Dark slats across the windows made the sunlight hazy here; the worn carpets looked homey. I wondered how many people had died in this room itself, right on the very floor. The idea was delicious. I dragged my suitcase to the corner of the room and hung my favorite trench coat from a hook at the back of the door. I hid the small bag of chemicals and disposable gloves at the top of one of the dusty cupboards, and I was settled in.

Unpacking in our family is a simple enough affair. My mother and Ruth generally like to tackle the kitchen on the first night; they've a long-running tradition of christening the new house with a quickie on the kitchen counter once they know I'm busy elsewhere.

Much of the house was already furnished. Apparently the legal battles over the possessions of the previous occupants had gotten so confusingly out of hand that the various next of kin had decided to leave whatever remained to the new tenants. The assortment of things weren't exactly in my taste, but they belonged to the dead, which in itself held fascination enough for me. I finished organizing the bookshelves and hanging up the few pieces of art that my mother and Ruth could agree upon, before letting myself explore the basement.

The entire area beneath the house was a mess. At the bottom of the stairs, worn chairs and battered lamps had been hastily thrown in a pile on the floor. I sidestepped the splayed limbs of a dilapidated bedframe, reaching for the light switch. The feeble, swinging bulb did little to penetrate the darkness.

It had the feel of a school science lab: here and there on dusty shelves were rows of jars filled with the little corpses of half-formed animals and bugs, sorted by illegible, yellowing labels that peeled at the corners. I was beginning to regret choosing the upstairs bedroom so quickly; with a little dusting, this place would make a brilliant hideout.

This was not a restful house, I noted. I'd been so blissfully at one with the dead for so long now that I knew the feeling of an unsettled room when I saw it. The spirits, though not exactly angry, felt as I did. Frustrated. Stir-crazy. Bored.

~:~:~

They'd enrolled me in the local school, which I loathed the moment I stepped foot on the spotless front lawn and caught sight of the elegant little handbags and pristine polo shirts the girls wore. I did not look like an outcast; early on, when I'd chosen my profession, I'd learnt the value of blending in seamlessly with the natives. I liked to think of myself as a chameleon: no defining features, only a simple, pleasantly vague look that didn't cling to the memory. Not the sort of person anyone would link with, say, a triple homicide.

In the tradition of every school everywhere, I was paired with the most boring, bespectacled overachiever that could be dug out from the school library as my 'buddy' for my first week.

Sarah Kerr was 5'0 and a redhead – not the pretty type, with those glossy auburn curls that look like new blood in the right lighting – but the flat orange that comes complete with an abundance of transparent freckles and abnormally white skin. Her face was wide, like the moon, and her eyes were spaced just far enough apart that I thought an average-sized coffee mug would nestle comfortably between them.

Sarah Kerr spoke in violent italics. She was _beyond thrilled_ to be my guide through the school. She _just knew _that I would get along great with everyone. She _adored _my very plain, very straight dark hair to the point of distraction.

She was, however, a decent guide, taking her job of showing me around the school very seriously. She led me through the four different bathroom blocks on the grounds, gave a comprehensive tour of the sweeping basketball courts and indoor pools, walked enthusiastically through the mud to show me the area behind the gym where the 'baddies' hung out after school. I had a job mentally cataloging everything. Having a concrete knowledge of my surrounding areas was a key factor to the success of my vocation.

Classes were exciting – not because of the stimulating learning material, but for the vast array of new victims that sat in orderly little rows around me. I memorized faces. I tended to favor a challenge: the small and weak held no real attraction: I'm no Ted Bundy. I skimmed over the ones in the front row and went straight for the back: the tall, lanky volleyball girls, the football players with their burly shoulders. It was like being a kid in a candy store.

At the end of the day Sarah Kerr trailed after me as far from the school gates as she felt safe. "My mother's coming to get me. What are _you_ doing this afternoon? Want to do homework at mine?"

I smiled at her. I have a lovely smile: straight teeth, not too much gum. I have yet to meet a person that does not melt like silly putty when I flash that grin at them.

"Thanks. I've gotta go home, we're still unpacking. You know how it is."

"Oh, of course. Tomorrow maybe! Can I get your number?"

"My mother thinks mobile phones are a form of imperialistic thought control developed by the Illuminati. I'll just see you in the morning."

As if on cue, the bus pulled up at the stop several feet away, and with a wave I trotted up the steps.

My mother was doing her customary moving-in grocery shop when I got home. Ruth was creating some sort of turquoise monstrosity on the wall of one of the spare bedrooms.

"Grace," she called as I passed the door. "Does this color invoke clarity of thought in you? I'm planning on using this room as my study.

"I have never known such clarity as I do in this moment."

She flicked paint at me, and I laughed. I liked mom's fiancé. At least, I'd never pictured stabbing her repeatedly with a knife, which was essentially the same thing.

"Chicken Kiev for dinner tonight," she added as I left the room. "Oh, and I put that printout about the house that you wanted on your bed, now that the ink in the machine's fixed. You would not believe how many people have died in this house all up. It reads like a movie."

"Anyone in my room?"

"A boy. You'd be too young to remember it, but there was a school shooting a while back at the Westfield school you're going to. The boy that did it got shot 17 times in the chest, almost exactly where your bed is, from what I can work out."

She laughed at my expression. "Normal people would not be happy about that, you know."

"Normal people don't wear overalls past the age of five," I said, motioning at her paint-splattered getup as I turned back to my room.

I'd looked forward to the opportunity to explore the house for the entire tortuous school day. I started with the attic, which held limited appeal: apparently a bookworm had used this as their private nook. Little stacks of penguin classics were piled in one corner, the top books oddly dust-free. The indentation of a person still remained in a moth-eaten beanbag next to the books; evidently they'd come up here a lot.

The basement was the real attraction. This time I took a flashlight in order to better explore the stuffy back rooms that twisted out of sight from the main basement area.

I did not see him until I'd been there almost half an hour.

He was leaning against one of the thick wooden beams that held up the floor, his arms crossed across his chest, one shoe supporting his weight on the beam. He was tall, taller than I was; thin without being scrawny.

Light hair, eyes dark as pitch. Cheekbones you could slice butter with. A striped jumper that belonged back in the 90s. My first thought was that he had beautifully shaped teeth. The second was how pretty they'd look dangling from a necklace.

A slow smirk spread across his features when he realized I'd seen him.

"Hello."

"Hi. Do you come with the house, then?" I let my flashlight drift over him, getting a better feel for the shape of him. The sweater disguised what looked like a decent pair of biceps.

He chuckled humorlessly. "That's one way of putting it. Welcome to the neighborhood." He twitched his hair away from his eyes. "I'm Tate."

"Grace. Are you robbing us or something? Because I'll be honest, if you can haul some of those god-awful couches out of the living room, you'd be doing us a favor."

He pushed himself languidly off the wall, moved to run his hand through the dust on the bench next to him. "They belonged to the previous owners. This house holds a lot of forgotten things."

"Fantastic. I've moved to the island of misfit toys."

The light caught his jaw again as he moved. I let myself fantasize momentarily about running a switchblade just along the little crease of his dimple. The idea gave me goosebumps.

"Is it just the three of you?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah, mom and her fiancé and I."

"Lesbians?" his brow furrowed.

"Is there a problem with that?"

His eyes bored into mine for an instant before he turned away. "No. Just a coincidence."

This kid was getting on my nerves. The balance of power in this room was all skewed.

"Not that this hasn't been delightful, but are you going to leave quietly or do I need to call the cops?" _As if I'd let them have all the fun. _

He smiled at me. "Nope, just dropped by to introduce myself. I might see you around."

"Sure. I'll pick up tips on breaking into basements from you some time."

I heard his laugh ghosting from the shadows, and then he was gone. Apparently he had my skill for moving quietly; the only door he could have exited through was on the other side of the basement, but I hadn't heard a thing.

~:~:~

_**To-Date Homicide Bucket List:**_

_The Pope_

_The Top 14 of the World's Sexiest Men, 2011 Edition_

_All PETA Activists_

_The Person that Decided to Assign Meaning to Random Colors_

_Tate, the Boy in the Basement_

~:~:~


	2. Chapter 2

It was a week before I met the second intruder.

She was not much older than I was; a slim moonbeam of a girl sitting casually in the armchair across from my bed, arms akimbo.

"Hey, neighbour," she said, and smirked.

My hand whipped out for the light, knocking over the alarm clock that had been a housewarming gift from Ruth. Neon lights blinking from the floor told me it was 3:30 in the morning.

"Great. There's more of you."

Her eyes followed me as I sat up, squinting at her in the soft glow of the lamp.

"Do you mind telling me who the fuck you people are?"

She gave me a 'knowing' smile, possibly the most annoying facial expression ever devised by the human race. In a heartbeat I'd mentally mapped out the trajectory of the knife on my bedside table to her jugular.

"I'm Violet."

"Hey, there we go. Thanks for clearing everything up."

Dewy green eyes considered me, but she didn't respond.

"Alright, then. I'll work this out on my own. You're friends with that Tate kid?"

She reacted. Her eyes narrowed and she looked away, breaking her gaze. "No."

"Okay. But you're in the same little club. The club that breaks into people's houses at ungodly hours of the night."

The girl Violet sighs. "No, its not that. It's...this house. We used to...come here. All of us."

"Oh, I get it. It's been abandoned so long you and the rest of the street trash decided to use it as a little clubhouse."

The smile was back, just at the corners of her lips. "Sure. Something like that."

"Well, as very Enid Blyton as that all sounds, the state of Los Angeles doesn't actually consider cubby house land wars a legitimate excuses for breaking and entering."

She looked at me a moment longer, then pushed herself off the couch. "I'll keep that in mind."

At the door she hesitated. "I wasn't going to come. I probably wasn't even going to wake you. I just...I though you should know. I wish I'd known."

"I'm really glad that you choose to speak in cryptic little phrases. It makes it so easy to like you as a person."

"Listen. Tate...he lies. About everything. He's like, pathological."

"Thanks for the heads up there, blondie."

Violet sighed. "Just remember what I said. He's a liar, and he does...he does terrible things."

"Your friend Tate and I have that in common. Now get the fuck out of my house."

I didn't wait to see that she obeyed before I turned out the light.

My hands were shaking, and that was a bad sign.

The last life I had taken had been on the interstate thirteen days earlier. Thirteen.

My joints felt sore. The inside of my skull itched. This wasn't right. I was beginning to crack.

I could not kill Sarah Kerr, as convenient and satisfying it would have been to string a rope around that mouldy, pale neck. She was just too damn noticeable. Even in total silence, the girl's entire body was a sudden scream of violent shape and color. From the shock of red hair to her vast collection of brightly hued tights, Sarah Kerr was as good as a walking stop sign.

This, coupled with the fact that she was rarely ever alone, was slowly driving me into a state of acute mania. In the week and a half since Sarah Kerr had occurred in my life, I had been accosted by no less than four sneezing mathletes, five passionate and spotty young women from the debate club, and two well-meaning but essentially worthless humans that I was led to understand played a game about dragons on a professional level.

Know these things about me:

1.) I adore being adored. I do not care for it, however, when it comes spilling from the feeble, desperate hearts of the sort of people that will eagerly quote eighty digits of pi at you without waiting to be asked.

2.) These children were easy targets. They were the Red Riding Hoods, they were the Snow Whites. Trusting. Simple. Naive to an extent that was simply shocking.

It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. There was no challenge, not a speck of intelligence required.

Even on an thirteen-day dry spell, I couldn't stoop to that level.

It took me three more days to find Eric Lawson.

He was a flannel-wearing American dream in a pick up truck. He was obviously passing through, although I didn't take the time to ask where from or to.

I found him at a gas stop, under the blueish, dying light of a day brought to an untimely end by a storm. He grinned at me in a lopsided way, and I, looking as forlorn as a small girl with wide eyes and a sopping t-shirt can possibly look, hurried through the puddles to his side.

"Nasty weather, this! Got caught in the storm, didya, doll?"

I made a show of wringing out my hair. "I thought I'd be fine to go for a run while the sky was clear a few hours ago, but I got lost. We're new to the area." I smiled ruefully.

"I'm new to these parts myself, but there's a GPS in the truck. You're welcome to hop in for a bit of warmth if you want, I help you find your house once I've paid the fuel."

I adopted a look of rapturous delight. "Are you sure? You're an angel. I can't thank you enough."

"No need to thank me, doll, no need. Here, you're shivering, hop on in. Can't have you gettin' hypothermia."

His truck was huge. I propelled myself up and into the seat. The cab itself smelled like sweaty leather and spearmint.

In better times, when I had more than slim pickings to work with, I would have taken longer, savored the lingering moments with Eric Lawson. As it was, with my hands shaking in a way that was most ungainly, not to mention unprofessional, I felt it would be best to get things over with as hastily as possible.

He got out of the car so meekly that I was annoyed. Knife to throat, most people will show you pretty quickly what it is they're made of, and mostly, I've come to the conclusion that within every grown man and woman lurks a small, whimpering five year old with snot dripping from the nose.

I dispatched of him quickly, taking only a moment, knee-deep in the mud and twisted grass, to appreciate the dulcet ambience of crickets harmonising from the bushes through the misty dark; the raw feeling of rope fibres as they dug painfully into my hands, still tightly clenched behind his neck.

When the thrashing had stopped, I heaved him back into his car, poured the gasoline he'd stored in the back of the truck over the cab and the muddy corpse, and standing back, flicked a match at it.

How I love fire. If I'd been given different opportunities in the early years of my self-discovery, I could easily have indulged in a little pyromania to ease the tension between kills.

I left the scene quickly, tracking back through the roads to my own house, avoiding the distant sound of sirens and keeping clear of the streetlights as they hummed to life.

He was waiting for me when I got home.

I'd decided to keep my wet clothes in the basement until I could bleach them, as Ruth and my mother were too petrified of potential spiders to venture into the dim recesses of the house. I didn't see him until I'd turned on the light and peeled off my sopping tshirt.

"Not that I'm not totally into it, but you should probably know you aren't alone." He wasn't where I'd first seen him; he'd found some sort of chair against the back wall to rock against, his foot propped against one of the sinks. The striped sweater he wore was all but indistinguishable from the one I'd seen last time.

"Aw, two visits in 24 hours. Is it my birthday?"

He looked at me curiously. "Two?"

I flung my sopping shirt into the sink by the door, wrestling with the rusted faucet. "Yeah. Your dippy girlfriend paid me a visit. I'll be honest, I totally appreciate the added creepiness in that she apparently watches me sleep. Really sets the tone for this little home invasion bit you two have going on."

Over the sound of stagnant water angrily gurgling through the ancient pipes, I heard Tate make a noise that was almost a growl. I looked up at him, eyebrows raised.

"Did she talk to you?" he asked slowly.

"Not for long. Enough to warn me away from her territory, though. What was her name again? Lilac? Bluebell something?"

"Violet." his voice was so low I could barely hear it.

The tiny specks of blood had washed out in thin red ribbons down the sink, and I turned off the tap, wringing out my shirt.

"I'm sorry she spoke to you. She shouldn't have done that."

I sighed, reaching down to pull off my mud-caked sneakers. "I don't know that I can actually express to you the extent to which I do not care about your dysfunctional teenage love story. You know what would be absolutely peaches, though? If you-" I spun as I heard his chair drop the floor. He'd somehow crossed the basement in total silence to stand directly behind me, with all the unnerving stillness of a stone monolith.

"-Get out of your house? Yeah, I think you've made that clear."

He was so close I could see the steady pulse of him, surging through the thick veins across his neck. The idea of slitting one open was so potent that I lost my breath a little; an uncomfortable bit of bad-timing, as the self satisfied smirk on his face told me all too quickly.

"Fuck off." I shoved him hard in the chest; not enough to throw him off balance, but more out of amusement he took a deliberate step backward. Black eyes studied me with interest.

"What's on your neck?" he asked suddenly. "Are you bleeding?"

I froze momentarily, my hand going to my throat on instinct. Stupid, stupid! I hadn't even thought to check a mirror. It was sloppy; a beginner's mistake. I was out of practice.

"Must be," I said, forcing my voice down to a normal octave. "I got caught in the storm, didn't you hear it outside? There were branches flying everywhere."

He looked up at the blackened windows curiously. "I didn't hear it."

"Do you actually just sit around for hours waiting to deliver pervy little one-liners? What do you do in this basement when I'm not here?"

He bit back a laugh. "I read, mostly."

"And you're just gonna keep dodging the slightly more important question of why you're apparently living in my basement again?"

He smiled cheerfully. "Looks that way."

"Fantastic." I paused, looking down at my jeans, the bottoms solidifying with mud. "Shit. I can't wear these upstairs, mom will have a fit. Look away for a second."

He stared at me. "You realise you're already topl-"

"Are you going to turn around, or do I have to break your neck for you?"

He laughed and turned back to his chair, books in hand. "Alright, alright. I'll talk to you later, when you can keep your pants on."

There was a wet splatter as my muddy jeans collided with the back of his head. I sprinted upstairs before he could turn around.


End file.
